You Bet Bob's Jangle

Museum Catalog Note *Beadle and Adams' Dime Novel Library*, No. 1067 (January 4, 1898): "Snap-Shot Sam's Surprise" by Arizona Cy, featuring You-Bet Bob and Arizona Cy from Cross Crick. A Western comic adventure in which the two characters travel to Wagonpole Camp to cover the wedding of the Widow McKorkle to Snap-Shot Sam for the *Howler* newspaper. When a nervous, inexperienced parson arrives late, he mistakenly performs the marriage ceremony with You-Bet Bob instead of the intended groom—having confused Bob with Sam after a chaotic initial introduction involving a near-confrontation over the parson's hand movements. The mix-up is discovered just as the parson pronounces them married. The narrative employs phonetic frontier dialect and emphasizes comedic misunderstandings, cultural clash between the tenderfoot minister and the armed Western crowd, and slapstick humor.